Integrated circuit packaging often includes two or more electronic components in a stacked configuration electrically coupled to a package substrate. This arrangement provides a space savings and has therefore become increasingly popular for small form factor applications due to the higher component density that can be provided in devices such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDA), and digital cameras. Some package configurations stack a memory component (e.g., DRAM, SRAM, FLASH, etc.) on a logic or processor component and are known as mixed logic-memory stacks. A logic or processor component can include an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), such as a processor and/or a system on a chip (SOC), which may integrate a CPU, a GPU, a memory controller, a video decoder, an audio decoder, a video encoder, a camera processor, system memory, and/or a modem onto a single chip.
Reference will now be made to the exemplary embodiments illustrated, and specific language will be used herein to describe the same. It will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope or to specific invention embodiments is thereby intended.